Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Rotlings are a constant reminder of the dangers of the mines we’ve found ourselves traveling through. The deeper we delve, the more of them appear, and I could almost swear they have some sort of Hive Mind or skill-sharing ability.

If you kill one with lightning, the rest become that tiny bit more resistant to the lightning.

Of course, each one might have a different level of resistance, and I could be wrong. But I prefer to assume the worst, so that’s the option I’m going with.

It’s at this point that we see the first deaths among the expedition crew, as the Rotlings begin to coordinate, attack in larger groups, and single out specific targets. I’d like to think it’s just a coincidence, rather than a display of greater intelligence, but they’ve begun to focus heavily on Lily and the other healers.

That’s why I’m watching closely now, as Lily steps forward deeper into the large cave we’re passing through, her axe flashing as it cleaves a Rotling in half. She shifts her stance, takes a few quick steps, and slashes into another. Using the flat of the blade, she blocks three Rotlings in quick succession, delivering a few swift kicks in the process.

As they scramble to put distance between themselves and Lily to reorganize, she takes another big step, extending the handle of her axe, and brings them into her reach, one Rotling isn’t quick enough to avoid the attack and dies with the next sweep of her axe.

A dozen or so creatures burst from the ground beneath her, leaping at her legs. Their small mouths, filled with sharp teeth, bite into her flesh—which is highly durable—and yet they still manage to tear chunks out of her legs.

The axe flashes as Lily cuts through her own legs, in the blink of an eye growing new ones in a flash as she stomps and slashes away at them.

Not even for a moment does she seem to need even a semblance of help, and she quickly massacres the rest of the monsters.

When the attack stops after a few more minutes, the sounds of fighting are quickly replaced by cries for help, the carnage of dead bodies on the floor, many of them missing big chunks out of their bodies, having been eaten alive.

After checking on us, Lily turns back, healing her own share of the injured.

With the way she’s been leveling her [Reconstruction], she doesn’t even need much mana and her natural regeneration readily handles the demand.

“Are you planning something, letting her heal all these people?” Aaron asks, coming to a stop next to me while his brother keeps pace with Lily, keeping an eye on her.

“Not really, it’s just something she wants to do.”

“What if she spends too much mana and needs it later?”

“Then it’ll be a learning experience for her and she’ll have to decide what she takes from it herself,” I reply, shrugging off his concerns. “By the way, I think Biscuit’s been sniffing in the direction you mentioned seeing the Witch’s connection. So that’s probably where the prisoner really is.”

(Food.) Biscuit confirms as he takes a seat on the ground next to us.

I look at him, as I continue my conversation with Aaron, “That silly corgi just refuses to tell me more about what he’s found. It’s highly suspicious.”

Biscuit gives me the side-eye, something he doesn’t seem to realize only makes dogs look silly, and then looks away.

“The Witch is planning something, you’re planning something, even Biscuit’s planning something, and Mais probably has something up his sleeve as well,” Aaron sighs. “Nat, I swear, we haven’t had a single normal expedition. The old capital on the fourth, the Mana Desert before, and now this.”

And honestly, I can’t help but agree with that. I just don’t tell him it might be something I prefer.

Hours pass, and we nearly get buried a few times, only the Witch’s quick reactions stop me from needing to step in, as she solidifies the rock around us or creates holes through the wall leading to yet another cave with a small outpost.

The timing is extremely suspicious, and we reach these places every time the other members of the expedition start complaining too much. It’s like she’s dangling all the shiny rewards in front of their faces to make them forget the dangers and let their greed take over.

Then there’s the way she looks at humans, it makes me think she might be a little bit… Well, racist? Even a few of the human leaders, and the feylith or vyssari members of our expedition, get the same dirty looks—the only exception seems to be the thylarin.

She also knows I’ve been watching her, and it seems to annoy her. Not to the point that she’s willing to deal with me herself and risk a clash down here, but I can see it in her bearing.

Still, I continue to watch as she uses her skills, manipulating the mana from her crown. I rely only on my regular senses, certain it would be unwise to provoke her by using any of my mana based senses. Even so, it's fascinating enough.

I'm also curious as to why she has six arms. The only other thylarin I’ve ever met with six arms—though five were missing—was Caisus, the trapped Champion. The Witch isn’t anywhere near his level, hers barely passing 300, while Champions seem to start around 500. So, being a Champion has nothing to do with it.

Maybe it’s some kind of rare mutation? Or perhaps the number of arms varies in the same way as a human’s skin color. Is it the result of a trait? Is it something some thylarin are just born with? A skill? I'm curious.

Then there’s the trouble with Babyface, number 4 of Hollowgate, and one of the other members, leading one of the bigger and stronger groups who’ve joined up.

It could be said that the entire expedition has split into 4 factions.

The first one is the Witch, Mais, and the other loyalists.

Another is Babyface, his group members, and a few additional people.

The biggest group consists of a bunch of random people who must have been collected to be used as fodder. And they know it too, yet they’ve decided to risk everything in hopes of getting their hands on some rare materials. Likely having heard about the dangers and opportunities from the veterans of the previous expeditions.

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Our small group of five is last, positioned for our sheer strength comparable to any of the other groups.

As for Babyface, he’s a tall, muscular man wearing leather armor and fighting using a crystal dagger alongside a weird skill that allows him to create crystals, not unlike Myrra´s Aurora Glass. Judging by his nickname, I would’ve expected a different kind of face, but the man is extremely… well, he’s not exactly nice to look at.

He has a broken nose, a meaty scar that goes from his left cheek to his clavicle, he’s missing his left ear and has a huge bushy beard.

He relentlessly bombards Lily with invitations to join his group as a healer, and the Witch’s group has been making similar offers. Shamelessly, right in front of me, they’re trying to take Lily away.

If we weren’t so deep underground, if Lily weren’t so strong or important, and if I were weaker, I’m sure these “invitations” would be taking a very different form.

Around that time, the acid rivers start appearing as well.

Unlike the rivers we encountered before, filled with their weird combination of molten material, these tend to be much smaller. The streams of green acid circulate through the walls in separate tunnels, probably as big as a bus.

Sometimes monsters redirect small streams at the cost of their lives, slowly filling the tunnels we’re passing through with the acid, such that it follows us into the depths, thus avoiding the Witch’s attempts at diverting them.

These streams of green acid begin to evaporate as well, filling the tunnels with a vapor that moves far quicker than the liquid form.

Before we learn to block them and expand our senses, they reach us two more times.

The first time, a group of twelve dies almost instantly, as the vapor melts through their skin, flesh, and lungs within moments, before the rest manage to push it away with a wind-like skill. The stream producing the vapor arrives quickly, dissolving the twitching bodies on the ground in seconds, and breaking through the mana barriers we’ve created.

It even melts through my tricolored barrier, partially dissolves the reinforced stone the Witch created in front of it, and effortlessly evaporates any weapons that have been left on the ground.

Instead of blocking it, I switch to Breaker Style, using a controlled burst of kinetic energy to form a ditch running the full width of the tunnel, allowing the acid to flow down and fill it as we make our escape.

Joining in, the Witch deepens it, creating a gutter that leads it somewhere else into the wall.

As the guys with wind-type skills keep the vapor away, I watch the expressions of fear solidify on the faces of the majority of the remaining expedition members.

Of course, that's when Lily gets closer and sticks her finger into the green acid and when she pulls it out, it’s gone—bone, flesh, tendons.

As it starts regrowing, she seems to recover slower, much slower than usual.

(If it takes me this long to heal my own body, I would recommend that you guys avoid it rather than relying on my healing marks,)

she notes, the look of fascination never leaving her face.

Then she goes back to it and, much to the shock of the people watching nearby dips her entire hand into it.

An hour later, and we have another wave of looting, this time in a small mine we found. The timing is perfect, given the way people started to panic when we got attacked with streams of acid multiple times. For a short moment, the fears are replaced by greed, and I’m sure around this time the Witch is thinking of just splitting off from the larger group.

I would probably do the same in this situation. The big groups of people are more of a hindrance than a help faced with the acid, rather than the monsters we were dealing with before. Of course, there is always the chance that if she does so, the monsters will start attacking normally again. Sucks to be her.

Taking the time to rest, I rely on Lily, waiting nearby, to keep an eye out, and I close my eyes, finding myself in an empty metro station, with electric lights shining from the ceiling and an empty train passing by.

That train slows quickly until it comes to a stop, Whitey’s standing on the platform. He’s wearing a black suit that fits him very well, and even his hair is a bit shorter and tied back into a neat ponytail draped down his back, the hairstyle still emphasizing his horns.

I know I’ve said that Channeler is one handsome mofo, but Whitey is on an entirely different level…

The view on one of the screens changes from an image of the train schedule to footage of me stomping to stop the stream of acid.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone so proud over something performed so poorly.” He says, stomping in imitation of my own movements, and a crater forms in the ground beneath him.

This one is perfectly circular, the released kinetic energy is reabsorbed, reused, and sent back like a wave, clashing with the first shockwave and deepening the crater two more times after the initial impact.

“How the hell were you only level 301?”

The question seems to make the demon happy, and he smiles. “The others might have focused on useless leveling, but I trained to improve my control of my abilities.”

I mumble, “While you were partying, I studied kinetic energy. When you were having premarital sex, I mastered my skills. While you wasted your days leveling in pursuit of vanity, I cultivated inner strength.”

Despite having spoken under my breath, Whitey catches on and nods energetically. “Yes, just like that. I quite like it!”

Without warning, he appears in front of me in a flawless display of Wraith Dance, and I mirror it, my movement taking me to the other side of the metro as I sense him moving behind me.

I time my attack, tracking his presence, but when I turn to face him, he’s gone, leaving only a disorienting afterimage in his place.

Instead, he strikes me in the side with an open palm, and I switch to Counter Flow, absorbing the impact, circulating it throughout my body, and switching to Breaker Style, adding my own energy to the mix and releasing it at Whitey.

He also switches to Counter Flow and does the same, absorbing it all with ease and throwing it back at me.

I mimic him, and he then mimics me.

We stand there, throwing kinetic energy at each other, absorbing it, adding more, and throwing it back, the power level ramping up very quickly.

“When it comes to moving large amounts of kinetic energy, you’re getting quite good,” Whitey nods, satisfied, and takes a step toward me, his body so close I could punch him.

As the distance closes, his speed increases, giving me less time to react. The jerk begins subtly shifting what I think of as the frequency of his kinetic energy.

My absorptions are rough, bits of energy escaping around me, cracking the floor, while when Whitey does it, not a single hair moves in reaction.

Dozens of quick attempts later, I fail to keep up, and before it all explodes, I release it in the direction of Whitey, who absorbs it again and throws it back, the resulting explosion smashing me against the wall, as the metro explodes around us.

Only the last-second absorption of my impact stops me from dying right here and now.

Blowing the dust away, Whitey stops in front of me and nods, satisfied to see that I’m not dead yet. “Tell me, why don’t you use mana? Why don’t you level up and get your Primary Class upgrade like I did? Wouldn’t that make facing me easier and a bit more fair? It’s something you could have done at any point.”

I fall from the wall and dust off my clothes. “Because I don’t want to.”

“There’s Pride, and then there’s just being dumb.” Whitey takes off his jacket, unbuttons one of the buttons on his vest, and starts rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt.

Standing there tall and proud, he moves a strand of hair from his face, the mellow atmosphere around him changing.

The lights above, damaged by the explosion, flicker, throwing shadows across his face, and his red eyes glow dangerously as his expression slowly grows more serious.

“If you land a hit on me, I might finally tell you my name,” he offers playfully.

“Must be a terrible name for you to hide it for so long.”

His teeth show in an irritated smile. “... you little shit.” With that, he disappears, and the fight starts anew.